Blockchain incubator Willenrimer has published a report titled “10 Outrageous Blockchain Trend Predictions”. The report predicts the top ten trends that would be rising from the horizons. According to Willenrimer founder Csilla Brimer, most of these trends will unfold in the next 12-24 months.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
“As political polarization and financial hardship continue to take their toll, legacy politicians and bankers are fighting tooth and nail to maintain an unfair status quo. Because cryptocurrency gives the common person a way to opt out, it should not be surprising that top institutional leadership is trying to stifle cryptocurrency’s meteoric rise.”
“While things may seem rather dark lately, don’t let the funeral procession for the old economic and governance system get you down. Like a bowling ball in motion, all we need to do now is stay the course and prepare to enter the greatest era of humanity where people around the world coordinate, do business, and enjoy their freedom without relying on powerful third party middlemen.”
Csilla Brimer and Matt Millen
Read on to know the top 10 trends Willenrimer speculates could rise from the horizon.
1. A Built-In Crypto Wallet for every Browser
A majority of crypto users currently use browser extensions as their wallet of choice. This is not the best option and built-in browser wallets offer a better user experience and fewer security trade-offs.
Willenrimer believe that every browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari etc.) will have their own built-in crypto wallet, primarily because of three reasons:
- The massive rate of crypto adoption and new people joining the web3 ecosystem.
- Built-in browser wallets provide a serious improvement to the user’s experience while simultaneously improving user security.
- Built-in browser wallets require less CPU to operate and are overall much more reliable.
Also supporting this prediction are two global trends; a large amount of cyber crimes that are forecast to increase in frequency and the growing realization amongst regular people that digital privacy and security are critical to staying safe on the Internet.
Willenrimer predicts these reasons and trends creating a narrative that encourages the large companies who build these web browsers to take notice and offer their customers a better service by building crypto wallets into their products.
2. CEX-es will Die and DEX-es will Thrive
As it becomes harder to make CEX accounts, DEX-es welcome anyone and everyone to the global, digital economy.
People are ready for a change and the user experience of DEX-es is liberating by comparison. While there is additional responsibility for users to keep their wallet information secret, the trade-off is access to a global, permissionless, provably fair market for investing and trading.
Willenrimer expect DEX-es to continue taking market share from centralized exchanges, until the centralized exchanges are regulated into oblivion and lose their relevance completely.
3. The Future is Multi-chain. One Diverse Portfolio
Multi-chain DeFi platforms will make life easier for users and unify crypto lending.
While today’s decentralized lending environment is fragmented, many projects have identified the need for seamless transitions between different protocols, platforms and networks. Willenrimer see their continued work bringing about the future described above and are excited at the prospect of an improved user experience for lending and borrowing within the “cryptosphere”.
4. The Monero “SuperBowl” Ad sponsored by CBDCs
Financial privacy is a human right. CBDCs reveal the consequences of financial surveillance and make private cryptocurrency transactions extremely appealing.
The potential repercussions of CBDCs embodies everything the crypto industry fears. In June 2021 the Bank of England asked the Government to confirm their desire for CBDC programmability so that Central Banks would be able to control and decide what users should or should not buy.
If restrictive features like these are implemented by CBDCs in an attempt to control user behavior, it will be the greatest “SuperBowl” half time show advertisement for Monero. People will immediately look for alternatives to CBDCs and the Queen of Private Digital Commerce, Monero, stands to benefit tremendously as the current market leader in private digital transactions.
5. Onion-routed Calls are just the Beginning
Anyone with a Wifi Hot Spot and a SIM-free mobile device will be able to make onion-routed calls for near zero cost and with complete privacy.
Encryption is the lifeblood of cybersecurity, but sadly it is often painted as the villain of the tech world by non-technical individuals. The Session App, which is similar to Signal, does not require a phone number for signing up. It is an end-to-end encrypted messenger designed and built for people who want absolute freedom from surveillance.
Lokinet, built by the same team as Session, is a decentralized onion-routing protocol that is faster than Tor and enables Session to offer real-time voice and video calls on their app. Lokinet can also onion-route any IP based protocol including TCP, ICMP, and UDP. UDP is a fast and efficient connection-less protocol that is a perfect candidate for applications like calls.
Session and Lokinet are just a few examples of what’s possible with decentralized privacy tech. All of their tech is open-source so developers can use what they’ve built as the foundation for a new generation of privacy tools and services.
6. The Decade of Fortune 500 DAOs and Diversity
DAOs give a new meaning to the term ” Equal Opportunities” and offer a chance to democratize the work force by creating human-centric work environments.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are still in their infancy but are already disrupting the traditional world of corporate employment. Additionally, DAOs saw exponential growth in 2021 and many blockchain startups are increasingly using DAOs to delegate decision making and governance to their communities. Similar to traditional organizations, DAOs are built around a variety of exciting business ideas. GAM3R DAO, for example, allows the community to create, fund, and launch new games with the help of existing DAO game designers.
While DAO’s today are mostly used by the web3 community, Willenrimer expect this type of autonomous organization to expand rapidly and globally as successful use cases continue to emerge.
7. Regulating NFTs, E-commerce and the Metaverse
NFTs are digital property and existing legal frameworks don’t know this yet.
While most people think about expensive JPGs when it comes to NFTs, this technology has barely scratched the surface of more practical applications like patenting and e-commerce. It is our opinion that NFTs are only beginning to revolutionize ownership and exchange of digital assets. NFTs are laying the foundation for global e-commerce, powered by a metaversebased economy and used by the masses. In the future we see a user experience where people enter a metaverse to conduct their business and their user accounts as well as the items they purchase are represented by NFTs.
The right to ownership and personal property is baked into many countries founding documents. The precedent for the digital equivalent of these same rights is still being set however. NFTs are raising thorny questions around ownership and digital property rights and we see this pressure forcing legal systems across the world to clarify how disputes involving these assets are handled.
8. Social Media vs. User Privacy
Social media exploits the digital “You” and platforms that respect your privacy will be preferred in the future.
As invasions of privacy become more pervasive and the surveillance state continues to expand, we expect users to start pushing back against these practices by demanding more control and autonomy over their personal data. Backing this up is…more data! The very real increase in users switching to deGoogled phones that use operating systems like the one from Calyx Institute and the transaction volumes from private-by-default cryptocurrencies like Monero show that people are becoming more aware and willing to take action regarding their digital privacy.
9. Atomic Swaps, the Trustless Peer-to-Peer Exchange
Willenrimer believe atomic swaps will become the most preferred trading method since it makes wallet-to-wallet noncustodial trading cheaper and permission-less.
Satoshi’s original vision for Bitcoin was as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. As additional cryptocurrencies were created, however, the need for exchanging one for the other became a sought after feature. Today, cryptocurrencies are mostly traded via centralized exchanges but this method of trading still requires trusting a third party and introduces risk in the event that third party doesn’t like you. Atomic swaps on the other hand, use a Peer to Peer (P2P) network where all participants interact directly with one another without an intermediary.
Even though atomic swaps today aren’t very user friendly, Willenrimer believe in the future they will become the most preferred way for cross-chain trading as software developers overcome the difficult challenges of coding them correctly.
Because they offer self-custody while trading, are cheaper and open to anyone regardless of geographic location, we see Atomic swaps becoming wildly popular.
10. Circular Crypto-economies will Flourish
A circular crypto-economy that serves a global user base is inevitable.
“Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments.” – Satoshi Nakamoto, The Bitcoin White Paper
Crypto economies where both merchants and consumers use crypto to exchange goods and services is the future of commerce. Easy QR code invoicing, rapid settlement times, hedging against fiat debasement and permission-less participation all combine to create a compelling narrative for mass adoption.
The full report can be found here.
About Willenrimer
Founded by seasoned crypto consultants Matt Millen and Csilla Brimer in early 2021, Willenrimer catapultes blockchain startups to the front lines of innovation. Willenrimer’s incubator, with its team of industry experts and experienced blockchain developers intends to evolve startup experiments into the most competitive startups. It offers a complete service to take startups’ idea from “initial concept” to “full implementation”. https://willenrimer.com/